Appreciate who you are!

This is a thought about who i am, my roots and culture.
The reason why i am writing it is that i discovered new stuff during my stay here in a cosmopolitan like the UAE.
The last one and a 1/2 years have proved very educating indeed at least this is the way i view it.
I am sure lots of people would argue and disagree that but hey it's a free country, where arguing and debating is more than welcomed.
Back to my original thought what i learned lately.
Being graduate of a german school and being tought by germans, i (and mind u it's not an individual case all of my peers were)infatuated by the west in general and Germany in particular.
To us western Culture signified freedom of opinion, technology, honesty, fashion, lots of beautiful stuff that comes with being a 1st world country.
While 3rd world was ....daaaa lots of crappy stuff that is labeled under 3rd world .
Anything arab was shameful and weak while foreign was perfect.
I remember my visit 2 Paris many years back, and we know how Paris is filled with Abeyas and kanduras in summer. That was the only european country i disliked merely because of the intense presence of gulf arabs there, which was a reason for my annoyance during the trip.Imagine someone practically hating the champs-elysee.
Ofcourse this could be categorized as 3o2det khawaga, my upbringing contributed to this infatuation, while there was nothing to counter attack my despise to- i am embaressed to say it-: US..
Whether it was years that wised me up or interacting with both cultures simutaneously and in real life(4get school that was fiction) that drastically changed my opinion i really can't tell but fact is that now i learned to appreaciate my culture and roots.
Suddenly kanduras and abeyas don't bother me at all, in fact i enjoy watching Emiratis proudly and gracefully wearing their national dress.
Let's face it we are not bad actually we posess many qualities that we can be proud of.
We still-and please forget abt mainorities- have family ties that could rarely be found elsewhere.To us the mother is sacred.Males being protective of their sisters, wives etc..
I also believe that we posess warmth and kind heartedness that is remarkable.
We stick together in bad times(please exclude governments).How many times did u get unlimited support from your friends??
We deffinetely don't lack history nor culture.
i can go on for hours enlisting our merits but that's not the point here.
The point is admitting that we have mistakes; working on them is the best scenario. Realistically speaking maybe we will have to live with them for a while.
Still, and despite our mistakes we should appreciate who we are and where we come from.
Please let's be proud of ourselves and what we have achieved.